


Ravager Red

by WaldosAkimbo



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Aboard Stakar's ship, Martinex is trying to be a friend, Red - Freeform, Yondu is nervous, Yondu made Captain, Yonduweek2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 23:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14725808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaldosAkimbo/pseuds/WaldosAkimbo
Summary: Stakar has made Yondu the new Captain of the Eclector. All he has to do is pick the colors he's going to fly under.





	Ravager Red

**Author's Note:**

> This is for day one of YonduWeek 2018! The first day is Red, music, ability, dream, heart. And obviously I went for the color portion! Just a quick drabble spewed out, so, hope you enjoy!

It was pretty in the dark. In the dark, where all the twinklers bit the void in shifting constellations. Too many to know; he weren’t no star charter, no navigation expert. He was a battle-hardened bastard with a mean-sweet whistle and the fist that would claw himself a crew that would make his Captain proud.

Not his Captain no more. His Admiral.

Still. It was pretty in the dark.

Yondu was scuttled away in one of the viewports, a leg kicked up against the freezing sill while the other dangled on down to the grated floor. Somewhere lost on the third level deck, which was far enough away from the mess and the hangar that nobody came by much, ‘cept for anybody making a run to the storage lockers that were bubbled up like pimples on the starboard side of Stakar’s Warbird. Quiet little place. That’s the point. A favorite place of the little runt slave they’d taken off that Kree battle cruiser not more ‘an three solar cycles ago?

_How time she flies, the arrow sprung loose and searching._

He needed time, is all. He needed time to think. And thinking was done better in the quiet with nobody but those twinklers out there as company. When it got so loud with all sorts shouting to be heard over the sorry sonovabitch who spoke last, Yondu felt his brain buzz and there was a blip of red across the metal implant grafted to his skull. Stakar called it his warning light. Called it his alarm. Martinex called it his Tell and showed him that Yondu was not the sort to learn how to play Pluvion Poker. Not the first time. Not the eightieth time.

The strobe of red was a warning that he was losing his tenuous grip on the here and now and was just ‘bout to lash out. All those people yelling. This last time? This last time they were yelling something congratulatory, even, but it didn’t always matter the tone that they shouted in. Not always. Stakar’s men had learned what that flash of red was after a few unfortunates had a yaka arrow threaded through their jugulars. Yondu was only blamed in ceremony but never reprimanded beyond a stern talking and a firm hand on his shoulder asking, “You alright, son?”

Two pilots dead at his feet and Stakar standing over Yondu. “You alright?”

A Girnashian bubbling blood past their lips, other men coming to drag him off before he kicked it on the gangplank in the hangar bay. Stakar’s shadow cutting a long navy line below them. “You alright?”

He wasn’t. He’d preformed badly. Out of turn for every turn. But if there was no whip or shock or worse, then, yeah, he was fine. He was fine and that got people to leave him alone. And if that didn’t work, Stakar did.

Stakar. Not the new Master he’d assumed he would be, but a friend? A companion? A fa…Stakar would take Yondu to his cabin and, yeah, the first time that happened, Yondu dropped right to his knees and waited, mouth open and all, but that wasn’t what he was for either. No, he would take Yondu to his quarters and talk to him. And teach him what it was to live again. Breathe again. How sometimes a word was better than a blaster and how sometimes a man did you a better turn if you angled him to your way of thinking instead of carving out his heart with a quick whistle and be done with it. Yondu learned. It was how he survived. He adapted. He took what he needed, he took any damn blow he could, but he learned from it.

‘Till one day, Stakar took him aside and showed him the stars and pointed out at a ship and said, “That one’s yours, son. Picked her out myself. They call her The _Eclector._ Got a starter crew for you, too, and all the fixings. All she needs is a color to fly under and she’s yours.”

 _Mine_.

It was a gift too big to understand. It was a burden too heavy to know. It was freedom akin to reaching up in the smoke and rubble of a downed Kree ship and taking Ogord’s hand.

 _Mine_.

So, they were celebrating, of course, but Yondu found time between claps and shouts and booze to slip away to the viewport that _didn’t_ face his new ship. He loved it, he surely did, and he had plans already starting of what he’d do to carve out his name for the Udonta Clan. Make the Ogords and his Ravager brothers and sisters proud. But to see it hanging out there made him breathless. Like getting sucked out the airvac and disappearing as another bit of frozen refuse out in the void. No. This side worked better for him. It was pretty in the dark.

Only one man ruined it on his approach. He was quiet, which seemed impossible for someone made a stone. Not _stone_ -stone, obviously.

“Hey,” he said, his voice crisp as fresh ice scraped off a frozen ocean. “You ran off.”

“I ran off,” Yondu agreed, focusing on the bit of scrap he was stitching in his hand.

“Too loud?” Martinex asked as he hopped up on the sill next to Yondu to look out at the stars.

“Too loud,” Yondu answered.

“Don’t repeat what I’m saying.”

“Mm-mm?”

Martinex kicked him gently with his boot, a nudge with his toe against the navy-blue leather of his uniform. Old uniform. He’d be getting a new one from the Tailor before he set out to the _Eclector_ with the fresh crew. Yondu swatted Martinex’s boot off him and brushed away any dust left over from his boot treads.

“Why you really run off?” Martinex asked, settling in the gentle slope of the view port, one crystal hand draped gently on his chest while the other touched the window.

“Too loud,” Yondu said honestly. Martinex looked up and Yondu assumed, as he always assumed with the Pluvion’s expression, that he was pulling a face. Could just be the way the limited light was hitting it. “Too loud. Too crowded. Stakar said I had to pick the colors I was gonna fly under and I wasn’t sure. I wanted to think.”

That seemed a satisfactory answer. Good enough, at least. Martinex didn’t need to know more, so he traced a few stars in the viewport with his finger. And while he was satisfied, Yondu wasn’t. He pushed the needle into the strip of treated leather he had, taking his time with the stitches. He didn’t look up from his work when he asked, “You didn’t wanna join up with me?”

There was a crystal-clinking sound of laughter, soft and airy. Martinex didn’t stop tracing his constellations either. The two needed to keep their hands busy for different but neighboring reasons.

“What? Don’t laugh.”

“I think it’s funny that you ask now,” Martinex answered.

“Yeah? Why’s that.”

“I had to come find _you_ , Yondu. You didn’t even look for me, did you?”

“I looked,” Yondu said with a scowl, and a dull throb of red beat against the viewport window, a flare shot up to warn that they were headed towards danger, rocks ahead.

“Yeah? Not very hard,” Martinex said, his voice calm, even, distant. But that was just the Pluvion way, wasn’t it? A body of ice. A voice that travelled lightyears to reach them. A soul so soft and light, like whorls of frost on glass.

“I said it was too loud,” Yondu growled, turning some so his back was against the viewport now. A membrane of glass between him and the cold of space.

“It’s gonna be loud,” Martinex warned with a smile. Maybe a smile. The crystal of his face was more pink than red from Yondu’s glowing implant. “It’s gonna be loud. And fast. And it’s gonna be a lot. You can’t cut down your crew when it gets that way. Stakar will answer a call, but he’s admiral of the whole ravager fleet. Sometimes he won’t answer.”

Yondu snarled harder, slumping down to protect his little sewing project. “Yeah? So?”

“I’m his First Mate, Yondu. I’ve been honored to serve with him. You know—”

“I know,” Yondu answered, cutting him off bitterly.

Martinex didn’t push it. He found a new constellation to draw, finding his center. Finding that unwavering calm he always seemed to carry with him.

“I’ll answer,” he said after a time.

Yondu shifted again, looking over his shoulder.

“When you call,” Martinex added.

He leaned across and patted Yondu’s shoulder, giving it a steady, Stakar-Patened grip. Like all his little younglings went and learned it. Like Yondu had maybe learned it too and would be passing it along to any brat that ended up under his foot too.

“The world once over are you working on over there, Udonta?”

“I said already,” Yondu answered, tugging his project up and away from prying eyes. Martinex just yanked on Yondu’s shoulder to get him to turn and show. He grumbled, holding out the scrap with the makeshift ravager flame badge stitched onto it in some dingy gold thread. “I figured I’d bring this to the Tailor. Make him use that Halfway leather he’s got stashed in bolts.”

“It’s red,” Martinex said, thumbing across the print. He glanced up, eyes twinkling with the nervous beat of Yondu’s fin shining back at him, the heartbeat of a fragile thing. His tell. His replaced tahlei. Martinex’s face fractured in a smile. “Suits you, Yondu. It’ll be a good color to fly under.”

Yondu’s face broke out in the same grin, and he shoved back against Martinex. Playful. Grateful. “You can see it, huh? Get my whole crew stitched up in this color.”

“Aye, Captain,” Martinex answered and got summarily shoved from the viewport.


End file.
